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BuzzFeed’s new marketing venture, called “Launch,” will partner with one company each quarter to create and sell
ads for its product.

Ben Kaufman, who runs Product Labs, told Recode the idea for Launch came “out of the fact there’s a whole new breed of companies coming
out of Kickstarter that don’t have a big marketing budget. But we think they will connect with our audience.”

BuzzFeed is taking submissions for its first Launch project
to begin selling ads in time for Black Friday, November 24.

“BuzzFeed will choose one brand to “launch” each quarter in exchange for a performance-based royalty
(you only pay us if people buy your stuff)! We'll look for products and/or services our audience will relate to, and bring it to life in a big way across our platforms & channels,” the program's page reads.

The idea is that inventors will be drawn to BuzzFeed’s reach, which claims three out of five U.S.
millennials monthly and a global audience of more than 650 million.

The site adds: “Our launch program gives new brands the chance to access the full scale of our audience
without upfront costs.”

Kaufman is no
stranger to inventors. He was formerly the CEO of Quirky, a company that aimed to use votes sourced from its online community to connect inventors with manufacturers to bring products to market. It
managed to raise $185 million in funding before the company filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

In August, BuzzFeed announced that it would begin to run banner ads on its
site after years of championing native advertising over display ads, citing improvements in programmatic and the desire to further monetize the company's large audience.